Electrical apprentice crafts electric motor project for summer students

Ashley Evans 
Fleet Maintenance Facility Cape Breton/Cape Scott

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Fleet Maintenance Facility Cape Breton Electrical Apprentices have been working hard gearing up for the upcoming summer student work term. The term will see an influx of students to the facility’s production floor.

In preparation for incoming students, Electrical Apprentices at the facility were tasked with creating an electrical project for students, complete with detailed instructions. Second year Electrical Apprentice Desere Sophonew shared the process behind creating her project, an Electric Motor.

When planning for this student apprentice project, Sophonew quickly opted for a battery and copper wire motor. The building process was quite fluid as she used her knowledge and work experience, along with comments and suggestions from curious by-passers within her shop. One suggestion she considered was adding more weight to the magnet to encourage the motor to spin faster. After a few trial-and-error processes, Sophonew completed a working motor.

Her next step was providing step-by-step instructions, complete with images. She included websites about how electric motors work, descriptions of armatures and commutators, and required tools and materials such as rare earth magnets and alligator clip test leads. She also included a list specific production floor shops where students could collect them.

Thank you, Desere Sophonew, and to all the Electrical Apprentices, for your hard work on these projects!

Fun Fact: The copper wire is one long wire folded in half, wrapped around until there is only 12” left on each side.